An Overview of Electronic Health Systems Development & Integration in Scotland

Timely access to accurate and up-to-date medical information is key to delivering tailored quality health-care to patients. In order to enable services provision at multiple sites - depending on patients' needs as well as availability of services - patient information will routinely be transferred between various health-care providers. An increase use of Information and Communication Technology as a medium for information transfer in clinical settings is considered by some as an opportunity for better integrated care. The primary aims of an integrated national e-Health system is thus to provide quality health-care services and improving clinical outcomes for patients. In addition, secondary benefits potentially derived from an integrated e-Health infrastructure include: an increased capacity for audit and monitoring, as well as opportunities for secondary use of data for medical and public health research. We here provide a brief overview of recent developments in e-Health systems infrastructure development and integration in Scotland